I decided to make my unit of dire wolves a little bigger. I have eight of them right now, and by growing it to ten I will be able to field two smaller units of five if necessary. But let's be honest. Both old (my unit is built of them) and new dire wolves are just ugly (albeit older ones are a little less ugly then newer figures;)). It turned out that I don't have any old wolves models any longer so I decided to paint something special. My unit will be completed with two minidioramas. I have had a idea of mixing some werewolves among wolves to to vary a unit look a little. I managed to find some suitable miniatures in my mountain of unpainted lead. First is some priest, second is a little werewolf, called Horror in old GW catalogue. I thought about making Sigmar warrior-priest first, to change priest's cross to hammer, but finally I decided to leave it as it is. It looks fine, has suitable gothic feel and miniature stays in its original version. Priest tries to turn out demonic werewolf with his faith alone, he defends himself from werewolf making ready to attack. Well, he is doomed.

Both miniatures were painted in old-fashioned way. Werewolf is painted to match other wolves in the unit, trousers and boots are deliberately much lighter, to make him stand out from his four-legged brothers. Red priest's robe was painted with the same thing in mind - to make him clearly visible between grey-black wolves. Painting is not really complicated but it took rather long time. Both miniatures are painted in multiple layers of highlight and shadows. I experimented a little with my new magnifying lenses. I even managed to paint priest's eyes more or less as I envisioned them.

Second minidiorama will have another two miniatures, I will try to finish it by the next week.

38th issue of "Kolekcja wozów bojowych" will describe American M142 HIMARS - High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, MLRS variant on wheeled chassis, which entered service in 2005. Ready made die-cast model of this vehicle will be bundled with magazine.

Zombie-ronin, of course. Next of the zombies inspired by Orient, this time it is clearly visible. I didn't know how to paint armour but after seeing some photos of samurai armour I decided to not paint any complicated patterns for low rank-and-file zombie. After some searching I managed to find simple yet effective pattern - armour with similar colors were donned by Ii Naomasa at the time of battle of Sekigahara. He equipped all of his army in red-lacquered armour, they were known as "Red Devils". Miniature, old as it is, is quite detailed - there is clearly visible mount for battleflag on the backplate of the armour for example.

I didn't even notice and I crossed the threshold of 300 notes on the blog. Last year certainly passed really fast for me, and it was one of the most fruitious in terms of my figure painting... But... Let's talk about hero of our note. Who it is? Well, obviously some kind of jovial, wide grinning gentlemen. He seems inviting us to the dance, even his left foot seems to be dancing on his own. And axe? Well, it is certainly just in case... Some angry neighbour could come with no invitation. It is good to have some "backup" just for safety, isn't it?I changed slightly colors on the fifth five of my zombies as I don't want to have very uniform, monotone look to it. Base skin color was changed from Rotting Flesh to Space Wolves Grey washed with very thinned (in about 1 to 4 ratio) Purple Wash (current equivalent is Hormagaunt Purple I think). Skin was then highlighted with pure Space Wolves Grey and then some parts were highlighted even more with mix of SWG and white. All other areas of this zombie were painted in exactly the same way as previous miniatures. And, of course, it is dipped too.

I have found some cool links in previous two weeks. First - something I like very much. A "must see" short movie with Space Marines made from lego bricks. Idea, execution, final look - one can really have to see it. More, there is a Space Marine tank visible there too - it rides, turret and sponsons are fully moveable, and it looks so good, that I would buy such commercial model. For my sons, of course;). Second and third of today's links lead us to some freebies. First is a page with free downloadable War of the Roses flags. Just download them, resize (or not) and print. Next link takes us to the Galpy's blog and some free 15 mm German WW2 propaganda posters. Again, just download and print.

And finally last link of today takes us to the Lead Adventure forum, to the thread of Mrdee's Chaos Nurgle themed army. Great models, some cool modelling info and a lot of inspiration. Another must see. Picture next to this note is taken from this thread.

Some time ago I noticed that I can't really see well all minute details of the miniatures - especially at the evenings, when working in artificial light - at the time when I actually have some free time to paint. Well, I'm getting older obviously. My sight is still sharp and clear but it is worse then 15 or 20 years ago. Well, lately it was growing on my nerves. I couldn't pain vampires' eyes for example as I coulnd't clearly see all small details, like eyelids, etc. I decided to do something with it then. I didn't want so called "third hand" - magnifying glass with some holders. I have one and its value for miniature painting is close to zero. I was looking for something allowing me to use my both hands freely, allowing me to move my head and not costing a ton of gold. Finally I decided to buy something called "Light Head Magnifying Glass". It is a kind of plastic eyeshade, looking like ordinary peaked cap without cap:) There is a small LED light mounted on the peak too (powered by 2 AAA batteries) and two holders under the cap, which holds plastic lenses. Week passed and my new toy was at my home. Large cardboard box with plastic insert holding cap, light, lens' box and manual. Fast assembly, some fitting, some fumbled tries with lens mounting (manuals are for losers afterall) and first try... Well... I have had to properly fit my new headgear. No problem, small plastic clip takes care of that. Peak itself is movable up and down. One can raise it a little while painting to read something, rest for a moment or precisely fit lens distance to the eyes. Two metal screws on the sides hold peak at the desired position. LED light is movable too. It is not really strong but it could be useful to brighten a little some obscure detail. Lens are installed by "clipping" them inside holders. There are four lens in the box - 1.2, 1.8, 2.5 and 3.5 magnification. It is possible to install two of them at the same time, as the mounting clippers are moveable too. So far I use 1.2 lens almost exclusively, as they are just perfect for my eyesight. I have had mixed feelings at the beginning. It was hard to get used to something on my head and lenses were touching my nose, fogging sometimes. I got used to first, and raising peak and lenses a little solved second problem. Painting itself is pure pleasure now. Every minut detail of the miniature is clearly visible. I can finally make precise brush movements seeing all necessary details. It turned out that I really don't need very strong light to paint. More - I can clearly see all mistakes and errors in painting now, and not on the computer screen. They are easy to spot and easy to correct. After just one week of using it I wonder, how the hell I was able to paint without them at all? For about 10 dollars I bought one of the best hobby related tools in last 20 years of my gaming.

Zombie-ninja to be precise. Next miniature with oriental background, I have two-three more including zombie-samurai and zombie-geisha with naginata. But let's not get distracted. I didn't want to paint our today's hero in black, as this color looks dull and is really hard to paint properly, so I decided to use dirty browns and greys. Unfortunately my miniature has had some serious flaws - rope especially was horrible... I tried really hard to correct it...

I jeszcze fotka poglądowa całej piątki... And a group photo of last five zombies...

It is interesting, that among all these zombies produced by GW for last 20 or 25 years, armed undead risen straight from the battlefields remains few and between. Most of the figures look like they are raised villagers and city dwellers. It is true for even current, plastic zombies. But small part of the old miniatures were different - one of such "warrior-zombies" is visible next to this note. It is one of the weakest sculpts of GW in my opinion but still - he wears some sort of chainmail, helmet and shield. To make this impression of freshly risen warrior even stronger, I painted remains of his clothes in a color livery, suitable for retainer of some petty baron living on the border of Empire and Bretonny. And this is another miniature with hand-made shield.

As I already painted first Norman knight I think it would be interesting to show this miniature before whole unit will be ready and based. I've got some questions about details of the miniature and quality of casting. Miniature shown here is one-piece - rider, horse, arms, shield are casted as one piece. I have had some doubts about it but in reality this is rather nice. Figure doesn't lose shield in transport, there is no need to fit rider to the horse, which is rather hard sometimes. Details - very good. Quality of casting is high too, there were just minor impurities on the horse belly. This norman knight is really quality piece as a whole though. I decided to try something new for me - whole miniature is painted without metallic paints. Hauberk, helmet, shield umbo, etc are painted as NMM. A real challenge was painting mailcoat - it took me several dozen minutes. With metallic paints it would be few at the most I think. I'm not entirely happy with the hauberk but spear point, stirrups or helmet are quite ok I think. Pictures are made a little bigger then usual to make looking at the details easier...

There was about 20 skeletons with scythes standing on my work table for some time, they were leftovers from the times when skellies could be armed with two handed weapons. I didn't want to rebuild them first but about week ago I changed my mind. I just have had to exchange old hands with scythes to new ones with hand weapons, which I still had in my bits box, and add shields. As it turned out, it was easy enough. Shields are hand made, as I always wanted to field at least one unit with coffin lid shields. I think they look really cool. All rank and file models are painted 20 years ago... i.e. painting is really bad. I just added some wash to darken areas of most embarassing painting errors. As one of the old miniatures broke to pieces when I was trying to rip off its arm, I had to paint one new too. Command group is retouched more heavily - my champion - old wight - has new paintjob on its etheral body and sword. Musician and buddy with scythe got new cloaks and retouched bones. Standard bearer got new banner, coherent in look with other in my army. One of the additional pictures shows different shield too. I found it in a Dark Elves warriors box and I was curious how it will look as a shield. Quite nice I think. Two skeletons retain old weapons. Both are old metal miniatures, first is old champion, the one with the shield is just rank and file miniature. As they were part of this unit since the very beginning, I decided to leave them with their old friends.

Probable last words of this unfortunate soul. Prisoner of some sort, left to rot and die - and to rise as a undead minion of some necromancer or other practicioner of dark arts. Unfortunately mu miniature is little damaged... Years spent amongst other unpainted miniatures caused desintegration of some chain links. As it doesn't look too bad I decided to let it be as it is. It's in "the theme" of the army afterall. Miniature painted with dip, with highlights added after dipping. As with few previous miniatures somewhat muted, earth colors were lived up with bright green color added to the areas of mildew. I like this contrasting look.

I just finished another unit of skeletons, for my vampire counts' army, they are armed with hand weapons and shield. As they were armed in scythes previously, I have had to give them some shields too. I very like coffin lid shields avaiable on some plastic sprues made by GW (or metal ones) but... First, metal coffin lid shields are expensive, plastic ones are not that numerous on the spures... Hmm, I noticed that they look relatively simple and even someone with two left arms (like myself) should be able to make them by themself. The shield is made from thin plasticard - old credit card in my case. It has just the right thickness, a little more then 1 mm. I cut out a rectangle about 2,5 cm x 1,5 cm (photo no. 1), then cut off corners, shaping it to look like a coffin lid (photo no. 2). It was made rather crudely on purpose, as I think some irregularities will look fine on the finished shield. Then I scored thick, deep lines on the shield using modelling knife and metal ruler. They represent "planks" (photo no. 3). I made them on both sides of the shield, as it is so big that inner side will be clearly visible too. Next comes the wooden grains. They were made with a tip of the modelling blade cutting very shallow into a plastic. I didn't make them on majority of shields as they made finished shield to look overdetailed but one can certainly add them (photo no 4). Next, I cut up sides of the shield, cutting off some planks, damaging them, etc. Shield should be little damaged and that one is rotten coffin lid, isn't it (photo no. 5)? One can make some nails holes too now, I usually make them as they look cool. I make them with modelling vice and they took no longer then few seconds each. Shield on the photo np. 6 is painted to some degree, as I forgot to make holes earlier:). Shield was basecoated with black color and then it was painted in thin coat of Scorched Brown. It may be necessary to paint two layers but some black visible underneath is fine too. Then I painted all lines scored in the shield with a mix of 1:1 Scorched Brown and Snakebite Leather. Watered down paint was used to paint wood grains and highlight edges of the shield. You can paint as many layers as you want, adding more and more Snakebite Leather to make smooth highlights. It is important to not overhighlight flat surface of the shield - it looks much better with strongly highlighted edges and relatively dark inside surface (photo no. 7). Shield visible on photo no. 8 is highlighted, there are some vague green spots. I made them with very watered down Goblin Green to simulate some light moss growing on. It is important to not overdo this again - splashes of green paint won't look natural afterall. Then I glued some very fine sawdust (fine sand is ok too) in places likely to moss grow on - hollows, crevices, etc. (photo no. 9) After glue was dry it was pinpoint washed with Devlan Mud, masking glue leftovers and darkening my "moss" (photo 10). Then "moss" areas were painted with Gobling Green (very delicate drybrush will do) and some brighter highlights were added (photo no. 11). Actually, this "moss" thing is rather important for final look of the shield, as it looks much better with some bright color visible. One side of the shield is ready. All what is left to do is to paint second side of the shield and to make some handgrip. Mine were made with small amout of green stuff glued to the shield with skeleton's hand impressed into it. When GS was dry, it was cut to the shape and shield was ready. It is cheap, looks ok, is suitable for rank and file skeletons or zombies.

As I already mentioned, I got a small package from Italian company Baueda with six blisters of Normans - complete Norman line of Baueda in time of writing this "in-box". Miniatures are packed in small plastic bags, all of them are casted with weapons and shields. Quality of all miniatures is very good, there are no visible mould lines across faces, for example. Equally good is sculpt of all figures - they are 15 mm but full of little details of weapons, armour and equipment. There are six blisters total so far:

NRM 01- Norman Mounted Command. Includes four miniatures with three different poses and four different horses. One of the milites is armed with mace, another has sword in sheath and is horn blowing, last two milites are holding their spears upright. With exception of the hornblower all wear long mail hauberks, norman helmets with clearly visible nose guards, mail coifs under the helmets.

NRM 02 - Norman Milites Charging. Four miniatures, riders are casted with horses, three different poses. All of the milites are armed with spears holded under the arm, all wear long mail hauberks. All miniatures have norman shields with umbos and norman helmets.

NRM 03 - Norman Milites Standing. Four miniatures (three poses), riders and horses are separate. As with blister no 2 all riders wear long mail hauberks, they have helmets, norman shields, spears are held upright, swords are sheathed.

NRM 04- Light Norman Cavalry - they may be called serjeants I think but it is a little anachronic maybe. Four miniatures, three different designs, horses and riders are separate. All riders wears norman helmets and shields, they don't have mail hauberks though. All are protected by soft long gambesons or aketons made from leather or some thick wool or linen. Spears are upright.

NRM 06 - Norman archers. Eight miniatures (four different poses) of archers. As they are devoid of any characteristical elements, these figures can be used in virtually any western and middle Europe medieval army.

Baueda's Normans are great not only for norman army of 911-1076 period, they can be used in virtually any christian european army of this period, some of the figures won't be out of the place even in some later armies. Normans of Wilhelm Conqueror, Normans on Sicily, Eastern and Western Franks, mercenery Normans serving at the Byzantium, army of the German Reich, Czech and early Poland - to name just a few. But what I would like to see... Some milites and footmen with shield without umbos would be nice. But what I really miss is some of the milites charging with spears holded overarm. Let's hope Baueda will make some of them too.

Ok, they must smell horrible but I have to give some title, right? Half of the planned zombie unit from 2nd and 3rd edition of Warhammer miniatures was already shown here, yesterday marked entry into a second half. Zombie of today belongs to this broad type of old rotten-ones I like the most. To be honest I like this miniature totally - pose of the body, head and face, arms and twisted left leg. Miniature was dipped and highlighted, no problems at all. The only change to the original miniature was bending a scythe blade a little - it is more three dimiensional now.

And what's going on with my historical miniatures? Well, I just started to paint two 1:72 Russians from Plastic Soldier Company box. It is just for fun though, as I don't intend to expand into Russians. Another thing, most likely to end on the tabletop, is the newest product of Claudio from Baueda. I just received few blisters of his Normans. I will try to do a proper "in-box" tomorrow but at the first glance they look great.

...or I think so. GW produced some eastern looking miniatures in mid eighties - ninjas, samurais, etc. Some of these oriental influences can be seen in some Undead miniatures too. Some zombies and - especially - skeletons are clearly made with warhammer Nippon and Khitai in mind. Today's miniature is inspired by these lands too I think. Zombie is armed with kind of Malaysian sword or war sickle called kudi - it looks oriental enough to me. As one of just few old zombies it has a shield plug - one of the old, varied plastic ones which are not really suited for my current incarnation of my army. I decided to make my own shield then, resembling coffin lid. I'm rather pleased with final effect, maybe I will write short tutorial about making such shields... Painting - dip and highlights, there is slightly more green added this time too, me make stronger discolorations of patches of rotting skin.

Byproduct of my latest rummaging through my boxes of lead treasures. I've found few different graveyards, produced years ago by GW. I remember that I'd planned to use them in some sort of cementary but I have them in such a numbers, that I can use them as a kind of "fillers" for different units too. As they are so generic, I can use them as skeletons, zombies and - finally - ghouls too. Ivy on some of the graves is ready-made product by Army Painter - so Silfor in reality probably. I still have some other gravestones but as they are quite a bit larger or they are not gravestones only, they will have to wait for "right time".

I just noticed that skull lying next to the one of the graves is still unpainted... Time to fix it.

37th issue of "Kolekcja wozów bojowych" will describe history of service of Büssing-NAG heavy trucks in Wehrmacht. Ready-made diecast model of truck Büssing-NAG Type 4500A will be bundled with the magazine.

Vampires are always warmly welcomed in my collection - miniature vampires, of course. I found some old, mid eightiees GW vampires while searching through my lead mountain last week so I decided to paint one of them. Miniature of choice was vampiress. Simple sculpt, bare metal seemd devoid of details. After miniature was undercoated and shadowed with thinned wash, face really came to life. It was full of very minute details like eyelids, lips, delicate cheekbones. As the purple is for me one of the hardest colors to paint nicely, I decided to take the bull by the horns and paint this little old gem in violets and purples. It fits in my army too. Sculpt of the miniature is not really clear - is the vampiress standing still in long dress or is she going corporal condensing from the mist? I chose second option, so I decided to paint her robe starting with very, very dark purple on the bottom, going through gradually lighter shades to pure Warlock Purple on her... ekhem... protruding roundnesses. To make Liche Purple darker I decided to use out of production wash by GW called Shadow Black. Current Badab Black is very bad in my opinion. It is really thinned and just grey. Old Shadow Black is darkness incarnate - very small drop of it can darken any color. Vampires's skin is painted in multiple layers of mixed Space Wolves Grey/Codex Grey, washed and glazed with blues and purples. Hightlights were painted with Space Wolves Grey with gradually added white and pure white for minute, final highlights. Unfortunately, I noticed that my sight is not that good as it was decade ago... I really can't paint all minutive details now - as eyes for example. I couldn't paint believable highlights on eyes for example, so finally I decided to just leave them as they are. It's a pity but I think I would not be able to paint small details better in coming years... Hair are painted as blonde on purpose. First - yellow is complimentary color for purple, so they look great next to each other. Second, it highlights the miniature, going from very dark lower part of the figure to bright hair. I used Iyanden Darksun as a base, washed with Gryphonne Sepia. Highlights were painted with Iyanden Darksun mixed with Sunburst Yellow and a little white. Gem's scarf on the dress is painted with Goblin Green highlighted with Escorpen Green by Valleji. Stone itself is painted with Scarab Red, highlights were made with Blood Red, Macharius Solar Orange and mix of Blood Red with Sunburst Yellow. Lower half were darkened next with a dot of watered down Shadow Black, and the final highlight of pure white was added.

Twenty fifth part of this little notes serie and I really don't have too much to share today. Nothing really catched my attention during last two weeks. I managed to find just two things I'd like to share today, both relatively unknown I think and both real eye-candy. First link leads to the article about dioramas of New York. Minidioramas to be precise. Attention to detail is astounding, especially when one notice small coin lying somewhere on the side and true scale of these dioramas is visible. Second link takes us to a small gallery of historical miniatures - elephants painted by Bennett Blalock-Doane. Miniatures, mostly, by Aventine Miniatures. Handpainted shields, very good skin tones, excellent composition. Well worth to see. Picture above is taken from this gallery.

Another Astartes of the VIII Legion. I have painted a few figures already and as the result I'm currently in the process of making small upgrades upon those painted firstly, mostly more highlights upon armour and lightnings. Night Lord in question is still waiting for his "upgrade" turn, so treat him as unfinished yet. The only point of interest are wings painted upon shoulder guard, though now they look rather simple to me. A few words on painting technique: undercoat - Chaos Black. First layer - Necron Abyss followed by drybrush with Regal Blue and Shadow Grey. Armour trim was painted with Burnished Gold. Eye lenses - Blood Red highlighted with Sunburst Yellow.

Why such title? Well, I like this song by Slayer, that's first reason. Second, I wonder how you would scream having such destroyed jaw as the hero of our today's note. Yes, yes, such is a price for scorning visits at the dentist. No mercy. Fifteenth miniature of zombie means that this is the end of the third such group. Unit gains numbers and it starts to look as a force. Miniature shown next to this note belongs to the group I like the least - I think it is the stiff pose with the hand reaching for someone or something... It has greatly detailed facial damages sculpted, though.